Archive
CONCENTRATED SOLAR POWER. Latest published applications 2015-2017. Concentrator Photovoltaics
Summary
Concentrator Photovoltaic technology (CPV), a promising area of modern energy production, is at the same time a subject of scientific research, advanced intention solutions and commercial development. Despite the obvious advantages of CPV, such as the application of small-sized photovoltaic cells in modular designs with concentrators, which allow high energy conversion efficiencies (over 30%) that significantly outstrip the efficiency of traditional PV cells, the commercial distribution of CPV is slow and faces significant difficulties. However, the implementation of the world's largest CPV project Golmud CPV Solar Park in China encourages reasonable optimism for the successful development of this technology. This review presents new engineering solutions in this area in the form of patent applications for inventions.
The present bulletin reviews patent applications registered by patent offices around the globe in 2015-2017 in the field related to Concentrator Photovoltaics in Concentrated Solar Power. General research methodology can be found on the Advanced Energy Technologies website. 2243 patent documents from 39 patent offices around the world are represented in the bulletin. In total, 866 applicants from 44 countries and 945 subgroups of the International Patent Classification are mentioned.
Key Highlights
The bulletin provides general statistical figures, including the overall distribution of patent documents by years, by patent offices and by applicant countries, applicant-related data (residents and non-residents), and data on the most frequently mentioned International Patent Classification divisions (sections, classes, subclasses, groups, and subgroups). The most popular patent offices among the applicants were: CNIPA (CN), USPTO (US), WIPO, EPO, JPO (JP).
Based on the analysis of each of the patent applications, internal characteristics of unified indicators (technical problems, types of inventive solutions, belonging to one or other technological segment) were found, which allowed specific features for each of the indicators for the entire array of documents to be defined, for instance, to define the leading problems or technical solution types that were disclosed by the inventors the most. Document lists are provided for the ten most popular groups of patent documents with identical unified indicators, including their ID numbers and applicant names.
Data is provided for each of the top 10 applicants, leading in terms of the number of published patent documents among the ones examined in the bulletin, illustrating their share in the established intellectual property market, distribution of applications by problems, IPC sections, patent offices and technology indicators. Representatives of the United States and China prevail among the patenting leaders in the examined period of time. These leaders include: Chengdu Juhe Technology Co. Ltd (CN), Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. (JP), SunPower Corporation (US), Kunshan Hede New Energy Technology Co Ltd (CN), 3M Innovative Properties Company (US), Abengoa Solar New Technologies, S.A. (ES), Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (FR), Soitec Solar, GmbH (DE), Boeing Company (US) and Alpha Metals Inc (US).
The top prominent documents section includes three lists of the top 10 patent applications having the highest bibliographical rating, the largest number of IPC sections, and those not being a part of patent family.
The conclusive part of the bulletin represents the lists of all of the documents reviewed, arranged by the top 10 groups of patent documents with identical unified indicators and by patent offices with the indication of the ID numbers of the registered patent applications.
Who needs this bulletin?
The proposed patent statistics bulletin allows the existing trends in the intellectual property market of the specified industrial sector to be timely traced, as well as the possibility of acquiring a carefully selected list of patent documents fully corresponding to the specified subject. The bulletin can be useful for inventors, engineers, scientific workers, and business representatives, who are focused on the development of solar energy production technologies.
